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Ask David Darling to quantify financially what it means to have CxBladder adopted by the main district health boards (DHBs) and he remains guarded.
But the Pacific Edge [NZX: PEB] chief executive reckons having the backing of government agencyHealth Innovation Hub (HIH) for his company’s bladder cancer detection system is a tipping point for faster, better and sharper healthcare in New Zealand.
HIH has signed an agreement to fast track the introduction of Pacific Edge’s CxBladder technology to the four main DHBs, which cover half this country’s population.
The agreement is part of a move by the Ministry of Health to help push new technology into the mainstream, a process that is invariably bogged down by the clunky nature of the health system, Mr Darling says.
“This is recognition by the ministry that new technology just doesn’t get into these DHBs and the advantages and benefits to the New Zealand healthcare system are not being actioned because of this slow pathway in,” he says.
“We now have a dedicated agent on our product in each of those key jurisdictions and hopefully we will see a lot of these challenges that we’ve been running up against removed from our process.”
Pacific Edge's Cx-bladder uses a non-invasive urine sample for testing. It has certified labs in Pennsylvania and Dunedin that can respectively process up to 260,000 and 35,000 tests annually.
Being the guinea pig
The next step, Mr Darling says, may be to have the testing tool mandatorily accepted as the standard of care in New Zealand. That would give the company enormous marketing power in the US.
“That’s another happening and something we are working on,” Mr Darling says.
What he can say is that the product has already been evaluated by most DHBs and been validated through 200 patient user programmes.
“So it’s not about whether we want it, it’s about who pays and how we get it into the system.”
“We talk about wading through treacle and while it's nice and sweet, it’s damn hard work.
“The great thing for us now is there is a strong push coming from all around New Zealand and we are genuinely the guinea pig for this process because we are such a cute, clean technology with lots of upside.
“So they want to use this technology to change the processes to make the system faster sharper, better.”
Big savings
Mr Darling says CxBladder has the ability to deliver “significant savings in time and expense” for DHBs.
“If we are able to segregate one patient who doesn’t need a full workup, then the direct cost recovery to the DHB could be in excess of several thousand dollars.”
Then there are indirect costs such as the reallocation of resources – some patients are in queues for up to three months, he says.
The new Cxbladder diagnostic test costs around about $320, while a conventional full, invasive clinical test in New Zealand can cost between $1750 and $2200.
HIH was recently formed, with a mandate to enable technology commercialisation into and out of the country’s four largest DHBs.
HIH chief executive Frances Guyett says identifying and forming strategic relationships with key external partners to accelerate commercialisation by enabling access to DHBs is one of the HIH’s key objectives.